Spiritual Growth
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Created for Purpose
We are told in Genesis 2 that God formed man from dust…of all things! Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being. Genesis 2:7 Later we are told in chapter 2 that He made woman from the man’s rib! So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place. Then the Lord God made the rib he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to…
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The Enemy is Alive and Well…But Defeated!
Even though I am continually aware of the influence of the enemy, along with his temptations, in our world today and I even understand that this is expected, more so as Christ’s return draws nearer…but once in a while, I’ve just had enough! After one evening’s disturbing end that included a crisis, my wakeful night included anger at the enemy…again…and continual prayers for his demise! He’s just so mean and my loathing for him just gets stronger each time I see him at work! The next morning, the Lord, reminded me…again…the devil’s work is temporary and his eternal demise will come one day. It hasn’t been long since I finished…
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Will We Ever Get There?
Do you remember as a child on a long trip ever asking this question? Didn’t the trip seem endless. You ride and ride and with each hill or corner, there’s still miles of road ahead to drive to get to your destination? As a child, when my family drove to visit family in west Texas, my sister and I used to count water towers! It did help to pass the time! Have you ever asked this same question about the prayers of your heart? When will we get there? To the answer, the resolution, the healing. We ask this about prayers we’ve prayed for YEARS. Sometimes we think the Lord…
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The Beauty of His Creation
If you know me well, or if you follow me (or my daughters) on social media, it doesn’t take long to discover our love for animals. Mine doesn’t include rehabilitating or adopting multitudes of homeless animals like my daughters do, but, none the less, I do love all animals (except for snakes…and that’s biblical, just read Genesis 3). When I was a kid, I would try to pet any animal I could get close to. This led to multiple scratches and bites, including snapping turtle and squirrel! I thought I’d be a vet, but figured out that wouldn’t work since I can’t handle the blood, and the pain of these…
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Overwhelmed, But Praying
You know, some days right now, after receiving another bit of news from a friend or loved one that is painful, sometimes I just want to give up. Right now the things I have on my intercessory prayer list include: a friend who has been in COVID ICU for 7 weeks, a friend whose 50 year marriage is in trouble, a child custody battle, job losses of those I care about, a friend whose husband just died suddenly, family grand-pet having to be put down, a friend with incurable cancer. And then add COVID pandemic, church reopening, politics and other issues in our country, the need for a huge movement…
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Are You Listening???
Do you ever wonder if God hears our cry for Him to do something? Perhap’s it’s been a long season of praying and not seeing any answers. Do you think, maybe He’s not listening, maybe He doesn’t know, maybe He doesn’t want to fix this? I think the real problem isn’t whether or not He hears us, but whether or not, we hear Him. Too often, I just miss His answers, or maybe I’m just not intentionally looking for them. And I too often look only for answers as I want them to appear! Daily we see people listening intently through ear buds of one kind of another. We put…
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4 Pandemic Lessons
I recently spoke virtually to women’s leaders in Baptist Convention of New York sharing some of the things I have learned during the pandemic. I limited it to only 4 of those many lessons and wanted to share them with you today in this post. Since December, I’ve been reminded of a post by Noe Garcia on Jeremiah 29:11. He shared how that verse is a follow up to the message that Israel would be in captivity a long time, and while there, the Lord told them through the prophet Jeremiah to settle in, marry and have children, grow crops and be fruitful. I actually wrote on this in January…
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Behind the Clouds
Years ago I was captivated by how God got my attention one morning as I drove to work in downtown Nashville. Reading Adore by Sara Hagerty I was brought back to that morning as she shared her own cloud story that led her to “adore”. No doubt I’ve written about this experience somewhere in the past, but I couldn’t help but relive, and write about, that morning again after Sara’s reminder! It was such a tough season for many reasons: my mom’s declining mental abilities, heavy work and travel load, family crises all piled up. This was also the week of our annual LifeWay Women’s Leadership Forum, our largest training…
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Who Really Knows You?
For women, one of the biggest issues I hear over and over is something that is connected to their identity. It shows up in many forms in the lives of women, but it stems from an understanding, or lack of understanding, of who I am, who I am supposed to be, and what am I supposed to do in life. So many women have lived all of life trying to figure it out. For some, it’s like being anonymous in a sea of people. For others, it’s questioning who their ancestors are and how that impacts them. Sometimes it’s a person seeking significance from the world. But whatever is the…
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Living in the Not Yet
Today I read Psalm 47 which seemed to connect so much with my New Testament reading of Revelation: God reigns over the nations;God is seated on his holy throne.The nobles of the peoples have assembledwith the people of the God of Abraham.For the leaders of the earth belong to God;he is greatly exalted. Psalm 47:8-11 What a comfort and hope this message is…one day this will be reality! It really WILL! Having just finished Revelation with my D-Group, (I wrote last week’s post on The Hope of Revelation) I see how very timely it’s message is for where our world is today. News continues to show pain, chaos, fear, and…
